


Jeeves and His Master

by Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Gore, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mindfuck, Pining, Psychological Horror, Update and Re-Post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29811822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine/pseuds/Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine
Summary: Bertie hasn't been taking care of himself lately. Jeeves wishes he would, but dutifully attends his master nonetheless.
Relationships: Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cuddyclothes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddyclothes/gifts).



> This is an edit and re-post from my High School days way back in 2010! Hope you guys like it! Kind of makes me want to get into writing the macabre again....
> 
> I've split this into two chapters. I think that this piece could work without the second one, frankly, but I wanted to leave it in for the benefit of anyone who may have read it and liked it in the past.
> 
> This was originally inspired by William Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily."

Eleven-thirty. It is time to stop with the silver polishing and meet Mister Wooster for the day, as I do every day in which he chooses to wake rather than pursuing a professional impression of Endymion.

Though, perhaps, one should work to keep one’s charges more in-line, I am of the opinion that it suits him to sleep longer. It is good for a young man who is constantly being pulled this way and that by social obligations, and, indeed, it means that I don’t have to suffer his all-too-pleasing presence for as long as I do normally.

After donning my morning coat, I move into the master bedroom to deliver Mister Wooster’s breakfast tray, a tumbler of restorative, and his tea prepared as he likes it: a large portion of cream and five sugars. I also come to remove the untouched brandy snifter from his bedside table. I fear that my master has not been himself lately, certainly not with respect to his drinking.

“You’ve not had your nightly fortification again, I see, sir.” He smiles at me blankly, as he smiles at me every morning, with eyes hollow and careless of the sight of his valet. In that regard, nothing has changed. “I will take the liberty of deducing that the reason lies in your club activities. Perhaps they become too wild for you to require any further stimulants on returning home in the evening. Am I correct in this assumption, sir?”

A knowing silence passes between us, and the smile remains on his face, though, now, he has shifted his head sleepily forward, his chin nearly reaching his chest. I feel a frown pull at my mouth as he makes no move to touch his breakfast tray.

“Very good, sir.” I can feel my voice rising from deep in my chest, touched with a bit of a “tone” to relay to the young master my position with regard to his late evenings. Doubtless he has an idea of how I feel. He knows, by virtue of the special measures I take on those evenings and the mornings after, how much concern I have for his well-being. He could instead be resting in the comforts of home every evening, and, difficult though that may be for the both of us, it might prove better for his health.

My master would have normally, I imagine, have taken exception, but he is quite clearly too exhausted to do so this morning. I bow out, taking the abandoned snifter, and return to my work for the next half-hour, until I am quite sure that Mister Wooster has finished eating. Like the brandy, however, I find that he has consumed nothing—another dangerous habit he has taken on very recently—and I can’t stop a _“tut”_ escaping my lips. Such things are not at all good for him. He should know this.

“Really, sir, I _must_ protest. Refraining from taking suitable daily nourishment in this way is bound to bring harm to your person,” I chide, with a frown and a shake of the head. I receive no acknowledgement at all this time. Sighingly, I bear his tray with its still-filled plates to the kitchen sink and prepare another day’s worth of breakfast for the already crowded ice box.

Done with this task, it is time to run a bath for Mister Wooster, which I do with as much aloof efficiency as ever I have for any employer. Or, rather, I strive for that appearance. Twinges of emotion never fail to assail me when I consider doing things of a personal nature—bathing, dressing and like duties—for Mister Wooster. Despite my training, and prior experience as a gentleman’s valet, I have never shaken the especially romanticized thoughts I bear towards my current master.

On returning, I find that Mister Wooster is still abed; his head has now lolled forward as if he’s managed to fall asleep again. I assume rightly that he has, on closer inspection, and pull my arms under his to pull him out of bed. This is a rather unfortunate ritual that has come about recently, as Mister Wooster has consistently been so desperate to remain in the warmth of his bed that he absolutely refuses to stand and undress by himself. Despite this—what any other valet would undoubtedly deem a “hardship”—I perform the task with as much care as I’m able, and ultimately resort to carrying his stubbornly prostrate form from the bed to the bath.

I dutifully perform my morning tasks in and about the washroom while he begins to bathe. Looking at him, even in glances, one can clearly see the effects that my master’s neglect is having upon his person. I have to bite my lip against comment on the fact. Not only has he grown intolerably slight, his lithe bone structure visible from his face down to his chest, but a fine film of hair has collected on the surface of the bathwater only minutes after he has begun his ablutions.

A bit of scalp covered in pale curls and caked with dried blood follows the individual hairs with a light _splash_ of the bathwater, but my master makes no move to comment on this occurrence. In fact, he only slips deeper into the bath—he must have fallen asleep again, I reason, from the warmth of the water and his supine position. Sighing, I pull his head back above the surface. The fear of drowning does not seem to have induced him to find air again himself, or, indeed, even make him shake off the pall of slumber which has pulled itself so fiercely over his frame.

“You’ll pardon me for saying so, sir, but I cannot continue to abide you staying out as late as you do. Not if the habit causes you to be as tired as this when you wake the next morning. You might have at least taken my restorative if you knew you could not remain alert enough for your bath, sir,” I reprimand gently, and am met with a gratifyingly abashed silence. I can tell when my master learns his lessons from me, even when he insists upon obstinacy. He shall be forgiven for this, of course; I couldn’t bear to leave Mister Wooster adrift and unforgiven indefinitely.

Despite his obvious regret, he will not remove himself from the bath by himself. Once again, I’m forced to pull him into my arms, at the risk of wetting my clothes and staining my shirt and coat with the ugly reddish fluid that seeps from his person. After I’ve extracted him, I work on drying him sufficiently to clothe him again—another duty cherished by the one who loves, and unseen by the one who doesn’t.

Once I’ve come to his shirt—I’ve had to lean him against the wall of his bedroom to prevent him dropping off to sleep again—I have to crouch low to do up the buttons, and a sickening _crack_ rends the air. Mister Wooster’s head drops to his shoulder at a singularly pained-looking angle, and I can see a protrusion at the left side of his neck, pulling the thin, pale skin there taut. A surge of dark reddish liquid falls between his outstretched legs, soiling the pale carpet. When his dressing is finished, I sit Mister Wooster back on his bed with a furrowed brow and a word,

“I shall have the doctor called about your neck immediately, sir,” I promise, only to clear the room of the buzzing air of worry that has descended between us. As I sweep from his presence, I know that I will do no such thing. There is no need to: _I_ can care for _my_ Mister Wooster entirely. He needs no-one else upon this earth; he is lost without me.

As if I had truly made the call that I’d promised to my Mister Wooster, as if I had _really_ been playing the part of the obedient manservant, the doorbell begins to ring insistently some short time later. I cross the sitting room and open the front door of the flat to a pale-faced Richard Little, and a rush of cool, fresh air. I speak before the young man has any chance to.

“I _am_ sorry, Mister Little, sir. Mister Wooster is still sleeping, owing to a particularly late night last evening,” I tell him smoothly, and truthfully, and, thus, find myself perplexed when Mister Little will not have it. His distress visibly increases at my answer, and I am forced to press my hand against the other side of the threshold to prevent him trying to shove his way inside. I level a stare at him. He, pale and shaking, nearly gasps.

“Jeeves... please.” His voice is lowered; my brows furrow together intuitively as the young newlywed leans forward to better address me. “It’s _done_ , Jeeves. You can’t do anything anymore—”

“Excuse me. I am needed by Mister Wooster, sir. Good afternoon, Mister Little.” I close the door and lock it behind me. I am able to hear Mister Little crying my name beyond it still, at an ever-rising pitch and volume.

I _can_ still do everything, of course, no matter what one of Mister Wooster’s preposterous friends might say. Mister Little simply does not trust me as my master does. No other man would. Not if he had not lived with me for years, and not if I had not loved him so well.

On returning to his bedroom, I make another effort to prod my master into moving life, which fails again, exhausted as he is. I decide on a whim to take him out to the piano; I sit him down on the bench in front of the shining white-and-black keys and leave him momentarily to pour him a wakening glass of whisky and soda. He is acting so horribly dour, and refuses to play, though I’d hoped that the simple act of bringing him to his favored instrument would persuade him to joviality.

I hold out the whisky to him; he makes no move to take it from my hand. Discouraged further by his refusal, I choose, in a moment of boldness, to sit beside him on the bench. Mister Wooster is leaning far over the keys, and has managed in only a few moments to sully them with more of that sickly substance from his mouth. But I put my fingers on the keys anyhow, and start in playing his favorite tune for encouragement, _Forty-Seven Ginger Headed Sailors._ I hope, desperately, that this will reanimate him; that it will coax his pleasant baritone into the air and brighten up my lackluster playing. His disinclination towards singing the sprightly song he calls his own is quite disheartening, but I cannot sing to encourage in the way that I can play. Instead, I have to resort to rudely raising my voice over my own accompaniment.

“Come now, sir, this is your favorite song!” I can only make such a daring remark under the assumption that Mister Wooster and myself are “friends,” as I really do believe us to be, after all of our trials together. One wishes for more than a “friendship,” naturally. One finds oneself petulantly wishing for _much_ more, particularly on cold winter nights. But the friendship we have, a friendship which allows Mister Wooster to refrain from speaking for an entire morning without my becoming insulted or even taken aback, must be enough for me to content myself with.

I’ve now surmised that my master will not sing for me. He has refused to all week, though I’ve encouraged him several times. I remove him from the piano and bring him to the sofa, as he is silent when I ask him to stand and walk with me there. I proceed to perform the perhaps overt action of placing a cigarette between his stiff, stained lips and lighting it with a swift _click_ of my lighter. I wait, watching; wondering if he will manage the energy even to smoke. When the ashes begin to simply smolder and fall off onto his striped blue dress trousers, I have to take the cigarette back to stifle in the ashtray before going to see to my duties again.

I return to the kitchen to polish shoes, mend clothes and the like, and note the condition of one of Mister Wooster’s shirts with disgust. This particular article is still hanging from a clothes hanger on one of the cabinet handles, mocking me with stains that have barely shifted after a week of work. I’d never known the peculiar difficulty of removing the brown and gold tones of vomit from fabric until this shirt.

After only minutes of futile scrubbing, the doorbell rings again, insistently as if there is a madman at the door—or else a fire in the building. Opening the door reveals to me another soul who looks to be either despairing or gravely ill, dressed in austere dark fabric and clutching a black satchel in one hand.

“Excuse me, my good man. I am Doctor Benjamin Carlyle,” the silver-haired gentleman greets me with a false little smile, and lifts his hat just above his head to me. “Mister Richard Little—”

“Forgive me, Doctor Carlyle, but Mister Little is mistaken about the state of my master, Mister Bertram Wooster. He is under the impression that Mister Wooster is ill, but I have assured him already that my employer is perfectly well. Mister Wooster is merely suffering the corporal consequences of a late evening and an excessive quantity of food and libations.”

“Forgive _me_ , my good man, but Mister Little insists that Mister Wooster has not been seen by anyone besides yourself for almost a week,” the man says in tremulous response, to which I cannot help but knit my brow again. “He says that there was an incident that he was present for... and that Mister Wooster may be in need of medical help.”

“I can assure you that that is not true, sir,” I tell the man soundly, “and I’m sorry that Mister Little employed his powers of deception to bring you to this address unnecessarily. Good afternoon.”

Like Mister Little before him, the doctor’s hands pulse a futile heartbeat against the door, and orders to be allowed inside issue loudly from behind it. No-one understands, and no-one shall— _I can_ take care of my master entirely. _No-one else_... none of those ill-educated house doctors, nor ridiculous, grasping young women, nor _“friends”_ who simply come to take advantage of my master’s beautiful kindness... I am the _only_ one in his life that offers real help; I am the _only_ one who is not constantly taking advantage of his generosity when I desire something. I am the only one who can keep his life in order, as it is meant to be....

He is dozing on the sofa when I come back into the sitting room. I am rendered suddenly careless, and I confess that I am unable to resist a real smile towards his deep, closed eyes and his bloodless face. That crown of pale hair calls to me, and I cannot keep myself from running my fingers briefly into his childish curls; I feel them, soft and delicate about my fingers, begin to shift and come off in my hand. It is a shocking liberty, I am aware; an action beyond friendship that is only possible while he sleeps, and only attempted within the past two days or so. I adore his ability to tolerate, if indeed Mister Wooster perceives these things at all.

But there is no point agonizing. I am, alone, the man to a great master; the subject to an exalted monarch. If he allows scales to grow over his eyes... so be it. Mister Wooster supplies me with ample funds to pursue whatever I wish when I am not in his presence, and to focus the entirety of my attention on him in his present state; as such—

The front door is being pounded upon again. Less insistent this time; more demanding.

_“Mister Reginald Jeeves! This is Scotland Yard! I order you to unlock this door immediately, or we will be required to enter by force!”_

I shrink at this. Could my mild actions towards Mister Wooster have been discovered so quickly? One likes to think that one is discreet enough... perhaps it was the master himself, when he was awake; when I was out of the room cleaning or preparing a meal for him... perhaps he left during that time, and told his friends all about my untoward affection....

I open the door to another breath of sweet air. This time there are three people standing there: A policeman, the doctor, and Mister Little, each with a face more set than the last; each gazing at me as though I would just as soon allow him inside as close my hands about his neck.

After a moment’s pause, the policeman begins, apparently shaken. I think, belatedly, that I should have found a way to conceal my shirt; the one I wear is dotted with several shades and textures of filth from my work.

“Mister Reginald Jeeves, I presume.” His gaze is locked on the stains, and his voice has turned from a bellow into something slow and deep. “You are in the service of a Mister Bertram Wilberforce Wooster here, is that correct?”

“Yes, officer. I am afraid that he is resting now, however, and—”

The officer cuts across me, quicker now, “I’ve just been informed of some... _business_ that occurred here, Mister Jeeves, and will be needing to have a look around the flat.”

Though I _know_ that I am innocent of anything that could be learned merely by looking around our flat, something in the back of my mind—a faded memory, little more than a notion— tells me that I should not allow them inside. If they are not coming to arrest me on the basis of inversion... what could possibly have brought all these men to our doorstep? I resolve to keep in the doorway, sharply glance around at each man—each several inches shorter than myself—and keep my place over them, planted in the threshold of our flat.

“What is this ‘business’ you’ve been informed of, officer?” I inquire with perfectly innocent curiosity, and cross my arms across my chest, all the better to square my shoulders and block their entrance. “I do not recall anything of significance occurring in the past week with Mister Wooster. It has been particularly slow; in fact, Mister Wooster has frequently been so tired he cannot remove himself from his bed in the mornings. His evenings out make him exceedingly weary.” The men exchange a glance that puzzles me.

“Well, Mister Jeeves, this matter is... of a sensitive nature. If you allow us inside, we will apprise you of the situation in full.” The officer’s voice has changed again. It’s now a placating whisper, the sort one imagines a doctor might use on a patient entering their mental ward. Still, as I perceive no particular danger, I nod to the three with a word that I must first be sure that Mister Wooster is resting well. The constable allows it—though I would naturally have done so even if he had given me no word of assent. I close the door behind me and make my way to my master, who is still dozing on the chaise lounge.

Supposing that he would dislike being disturbed by the presence of the men, I carry Mister Wooster into his bedroom. I dutifully remove his jacket and shoes, place him in bed, and pull the covers over him before I return to the front door. I am glad to think that he is still able to have some rest in the midst of this decidedly offensive situation, one that lacks any hint of a logical explanation. Unless, perhaps, it is that Mister Little has had the audacity to think to blackmail my master into performing some sort of task for him now that he is married. I can’t say that I think it impossible, either for him or any other one of Mister Wooster’s Drones.

The three men have moved into a close huddle by the time I return to them, and I allow them inside with an easy gesture of the arm. Despite my subsequent gesture to do so, not one sits down, but all continue to gaze at me as they move inside. The doctor even suggests that _I_ sit, which I do only after my initial refusal causes a troubled frisson across the group. I barely sit, however. I sit at the very edge of the cushion, and my spine is as straight as I can make it, and I gaze at each man in turn.

“Gentlemen, I am anxious to understand the nature of your visit, if you would be so good as to inform me. I would appreciate expedience in this matter. I have things yet to be done for Mister Wooster this afternoon.” Every word I say seems to pull them in nearer to one another until they are a veritable mass of black-suited men, each holding his hat close to him in shuddering, pale hands.

“Mister Little, if you would please....” The officer says quietly. Mister Little looks like he would much rather be condemned to walk the edge of a pit of hellfire than addressing me. _Me_ , the man who has offered him assistance so often in with his pre- _and_ post-marital affairs. His pale eyes dart from the floor up to my face as he begins,

“Jeeves... something’s happened to Bertie, and I _know_ you know it. You may be having some kind of... er... ‘delusion’... or whatever the doctors call it—” Carlyle nods gravely— “and I think it’s because you think it’s your fault that it happened. You didn’t _mean_ to do anything, Jeeves, I _know_ it, and I know how much you cared about Bertie, for all these years....”

“I fail to understand you, Mister Little,” I say, exactly as calm as Mister Little is distressed. “‘My _fault,’_ you say? I cannot recall any time that I’ve brought physical harm to Mister Wooster, whether by intended means or otherwise.” It is the truth, and the doctor behind the despairing young man brings a hand up to his shoulder and whispers into his ear; if my powers of aural perception are as keen as they ever were, I believe that he says something to do with “the whole story.” This only serves to puzzle me further, for there _is_ no “story.” Only normal days and normal nights, of seeing my master when he comes home from his club and when he has his meals in. Of bathing and dressing and making mad attempts to make the impossible real, all while keeping a guise of legality and propriety necessary for my profession.... It is the same as it ever was. Perhaps some things have changed. I have been reckless. But that is nothing Mister Little could have _seen_....

The sandy-haired youth swallows, clutches his hat closer to his chest, and starts again, “It was last week, Jeeves. It happened a week ago today, actually....” He laughs suddenly at this, evidently lost for words, as any man will be when placed in a situation entirely above his mental abilities. “Er... Bertie and I... we had some ridiculous scheme planned, you know, the sort he takes up to show that... he’s not a ‘slave to his valet.’ We were going to start our ‘work’ by going into the mirror business. Old-fashioned mirrors, the kind they made back in the fifties... something Bertie said he used to do all the time with his Great Uncle.... And, you see, Rosie demands that I do something lucrative with my life, and Bertie’s aunts were on him to take a job.... We couldn’t afford the treatment they do in Germany and expect to make any kind of profit, you know, using silver coating.... So we had to buy glass, tin sheets, and, of course... mercury.” He pauses again, and— _horror_ —I can feel a very small, very pointed feeling within me; a feeling that maybe, _just_ , I had heard this story before....

But I do not believe. I _can_ not; I do not remember any of these things, and, doubtless, had something of the nature Mister Little describes occurred, I would recall it. I meet Mister Little’s unusually wet gaze. His eyes beg me to have a sudden recollection that I will not allow. I will not succumb to the feeling within me; I refuse to be taken by the rapture of the saints, to be suddenly rent and consumed by heretofore hidden knowledge.

I look beyond Mister Little. The doctor and the policeman have both begun writing on small pads of paper, pencils racing down their minute pages. They stop at nearly the same moment and glance impatiently up at the young man.

“Go on, Mister Little,” the policeman prods, “we need more information.”

“We... we started to make our set-up in the kitchen, but we couldn’t find anything to pour the mercury as evenly as we were supposed to... s-so... so....” He pauses, and I think he must be on the edge of some sort of admission. “We dumped out your creamer and filled that, figuring we’d tell you about it as soon as you got back from the grocer’s. We got distracted, though. I said we should have a snifter at the Drones before teatime, and we went about putting all the glass and tin away... we jolly well forgot about the mercury, though.” I can hear his voice turning venomous as he goes on; every mention of the liquid element deepens his tone and makes it waver closer to tears. “We shouldn’t have put it there... we just... _forgot_ it, after we put it in the creamer... so... after some chatting, and some brandy, we... came back... for tea.”

He is openly gasping for breath now, and the doctor gently coerces Mister Little into a stuffed chair opposite me, the one my master takes his nightcap in. “I asked for sugar, and you already had Bertie’s ready when we walked in the door... we... chatted about our scheme... about my honeymoon... and... then....” The young man loses his tongue once more. When he finds it again, his voice is rough and low and biting. “Bertie just started... having a fit. He came over all... t-twitching... and fell over the arm of his chair, drooling... and... being sick.... You came in with some medicine, I think, Jeeves, and took him up like he was a baby squirming in your arms, but he’d.... Oh _Lord_ … he’d already hit his head against the chair and the floor so many times... he was bleeding from this ghastly crack in the head; you could see clean through to—I... I couldn’t _believe_ it. He was... my _best friend_.... You... you brought him to bed... you sent me away, a-and... _and_....”

The doctor is suddenly kneeling by the armchair and speaking gently through Mister Little’s sudden onslaught of tears; the policeman is staring fixedly at me, leveling his gaze from on high as I’d done to him in the doorway.

I stare back. My face must read as a blank, a blank, perhaps, with a touch of incredulity, as it is all I feel. I have been told a grisly story, _told_ what is supposed to be a segment of my own life; a wretched, depraved thing of which I have no memory. I do not believe it.

With a growl and a sudden violence, the officer wrenches me up by the arm and drags me, tripping, into the bedroom where Mister Wooster is. He points furiously at the sleeping form of my master, and he yells hotly into my face.

“By _God,_ man, he’s _dead!”_

I shrink a little, despite my resolve. “Please... do not raise your voice when Mister Wooster is trying to s-sleep....” My own voice falters under the strain of the officer’s words. I feel nothing, nothing but present confusion and a faraway whisper of pain. The officer makes another roar of ire and takes me by the shoulders, shaking me with such ferocity that I cannot begin to resist. I am lost. I can do nothing. I can say nothing. I allow it to happen.

“Mister Wooster is _deceased,_ Mister Jeeves,” the physician insists on his appearance in the doorway. He forces himself between me and the policeman at once; the officer snarls and meets me with an iron-melting gaze from across the sprawling master bedroom. The doctor is at Mister Wooster’s side in a moment, and I move intuitively to prevent my master being woken. I am not hasty enough to him, however, and Mister Wooster’s stiff arm is already being lifted upward from his coverlet and dropped down. There is no movement within the body; no resistance. Only gravity.

Sweat chills my temples, and I have begun speaking without recognizing my own voice. “He is _not_ , sir... _you_ are deluded, yourself. He is resting, simply... _resting_.... I have cared for him for days in this state... how can someone of such a learned profession as yourself ever confuse the states of sleep and death, Mister Carlyle?” I demand bitterly. “You haven’t the qualification to call yourself a ‘doctor,’ in that case....”

I have hidden my face from the men, quite unable to look at them. My mind is reeling with such wild strength that no single thought is visible. Everything is a blur of color and sound and feeling. I want to be sick. But all I can do is stand and bear the hard, damning eyes of two men who have done nothing but to harm my master, and hear the distracting noise of Mister Little weeping in the next room.

No-one sees it but myself: I _am,_ as Mister Wooster has said repeatedly, a paragon; a font of wisdom, ready to dispense information at any time, and make diagnoses where appropriate. I have no knowledge of these people, where they have come from, how reliable they are... I can only trust in myself. I have always been good to Mister Wooster, and I shall continue to do him good by defending his life against those who would pronounce him “dead” by their preposterous confusion of Hypnos and Thanatos.

The doctor’s hand has manifested upon my shoulder. He is gazing up at me with a pitying expression that I cannot _stand_ , yet my present state does not allow me to do more than shift an inch or so away from him. A wan smile appears on his lips, and he speaks.

“Come now, Mister Jeeves. Come out with us for some time. You have been too long indoors with your master, I believe, if what Mister Little has said is true.” I raise my head to protest the truth of Mister Little’s words, but I am interrupted before any semblance of language can issue from my mouth. “We’ll have everything explained to you soon enough.”


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another day.

Eleven-thirty. It is time to stop the silver polishing and meet Mister Wooster for the day, as I must every day in which he doesn’t lose himself under Morpheus’ cloak.

I find that I’m glad when my master allows himself to sleep in. Insomnia is a bane in life for which there is little cure, as I know well, and innocent is the mind that can find ample rest in the night. Perhaps I’m swayed by my personal feelings in this way. I know myself, and I know that I delight in the thought that Mister Wooster remains the pure, frankly joyous young man I have known him to be since the first day of my employment.

Once I’ve made myself presentable, I come to deliver his tea just as he likes it— a healthy measure of cream and five lumps of sugar—and to take away the empty brandy snifter left from his nightcap. He’s returned to many things—his nightcaps, his meals—in the past few days. I could weep with relief.

“I’m glad to see that you’ve begun taking your evening brandy again, sir, if you do not mind me saying so.” I can feel my voice in its rightful place in my throat, raised from the cold sobriety of days before, when I was so concerned for my master’s position that I was on the edge of speaking my mind fully about his habits. He has taken an exception to the change, I see. His incredibly blue eyes come up to meet mine, and his face is decorated handsomely with a rosy-lipped smile, and I am deeply gratified.

“Can’t complain, Jeeves. It was awfully silly of me to have started going off the stuff in the first place. Didn’t help a thing, and, anyhow, I’m even not sure what it was _supposed_ to help,” he says to me on a gay breath of laughter, and I allow my own subtler version of a smile to pull at the corner of my mouth before retreating back into the kitchen for his breakfast tray. I’ve arranged it beautifully, perhaps more so than usual in my joy. I’ve even added a little blooming rosebud in a delicate vase: the message, indecipherable to Mister Wooster, that I should one day like to rise beyond the rank of “valet” in his heart.

Mister Wooster smiles on as I bring him his tray, and takes up a forkful of egg with gusto. Bowing slightly, I leave to return to my work for the next half-hour, until I suppose that the breakfast tray is empty. All of the food has been consumed on my return, no doubt with the eagerness of a young man preparing for a full day of social occasions and trifling mishaps and jaunts about London.

I have to drop my gaze when I see that Mister Wooster is twiddling the stem of the rosebud between his long, slender fingers.

“Jeeves.... You always know what’s best for me, you know?” He says jovially as I take the tray, with another smile that I’d ambitiously call “fond.” “Can’t thank you enough sometimes, my good man.”

“Really, sir, I _must_ protest....” I feel my face prickling slightly about the cheeks and ears. Although used to flattery on matters of the mind by Mister Wooster, the terms he uses on this occasion seem to denote _more_ to my mind; that he is thanking me for something greater than simply guiding him in the case of an ill-fated engagement or quoting a fitting epigram. “I am only ensuring that you take your proper daily nourishment again. You had stopped for some time, as you recall, sir.”

“It’s bally well more than _that,_ Jeeves,” he corrects me swiftly, sitting up erect against his pillows. I not only see, but _feel_ him considering me as I leave to deposit his tray, and again when I cross past him to the washroom to start his bathwater. Over the quiet rumble of the tap, Mister Wooster speaks again, “I mean... everything you do for me.... Helping me out, and cooking, and dressing me of course, but... also... being so... _good_ , and thoughtful.... And these roses... these roses tell the whole story! They say, loud and clear, that Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a loved man.”

It is moments such as this that make one believe that one is imagining life, or else reliving in a better place after death. I find myself stunned for a time, and can only manage a single syllable when I return to the doorway, and my master’s presence.

“Sir?”

I worry, for a single, sickening moment, that he will be unnerved by my bemusement. But no: he is as imperturbable as one could hope for, his face forthright and his eyes set unwavering upon me. It is a wonder that I haven’t perished after a few seconds of that intense regard.

“Jeeves... you make me feel _wonderfully_ loved. And I wager I can guess why that is.” He stares at me, he _sees_ me; I am, without knowing that I’ve moved, right by his bedside, looking into his eyes, and he presses one of his soft, unmarred hands against the side of my face. “Don’t you love me, Jeeves? As a paragon, as a font of knowledge, you must already know that _I_ love _you_....”

I could so easily weep on hearing such words, but I do not. I embrace him, and am embraced in return, and with surprising strength I am drawn into the vast feather bed beside Mister Wooster. He is unbearably divine. There is no epigram in existence for this moment of smiling into his face, _really_ smiling as tears obscure my vision and my eyes are forced to close. And he _kisses_ me. A dream... it is a beautiful dream born into reality, saccharine and pained and absolutely... revolutionary _._ A renaissance, drawn from and circumscribed by the mouth of my young master and his impossible love....

“The morphine affects everybody differently, Jeeves,” he whispers to me delicately, and I burrow further into his warm, encompassing embrace, my heart filled with joy, in revelry of the sweetened words that fall from my master’s lips. He has said that he loves me... we will be together in the idyllic constant, _forever_....

 _Morphine?_ I’ve only just taken in the word. While I am prepared to take almost any word spoken with affection from my master as some relation to this gloriously newfound spring, there seems to me absolutely nothing that can make a potent opiate fit into the brilliantly-colored picture of my happiness.

“Forgive me, sir... but... what did you say?” My voice sounds peculiarly distant, but his gaze remains as fond and focused as ever, so, I forge on with a touch more strength. “Sir... my love... I do not take your meaning....” He smiles knowingly and touches the side of my face again.

“The morphine, Jeeves. It can have very strange effects on people previously unexposed to the refined product of the active chemicals derived from the common opium poppy bloom....”

“ _What?_ ” I gasp. I am lost. I am struck briefly dumb as I realize that his tone has shifted. It is no longer his voice that speaks; the words are not his own. I am left staring as I crumble inward into nothing and nowhere. He does not answer me. I know nothing. I struggle against his arms, and find I am unable to leave his tight embrace now that I have a mind to—

And then there is light.

A scathingly bright beam pierces my eyes, and I know nothing, still, nothing but the fact of my love for Mister Wooster, and his for me. My eyes fight for sight through the glaring electric light. Mister Wooster is gone.

In fact, I am no longer in our flat. Instead, I find myself lying prostrate on a bed in a clean, empty room decorated in perplexingly friendly shades of blue. I want to stand, but find I cannot. I look down and about as well I can and register for the first time: I am strapped into a contraption with braces on either side of my head, disallowing movement of any kind but the smallest turns and twitches; I can make no movement at all that will free me from this inexplicable prison that has driven me from the arms of my master.

A doctor floats into my line of sight. It is the same one from the flat, the charlatan, Carlyle. His dark eyes betray nothing, but I feel much in the long silence that passes between us.

“The morphine affects everyone differently, Mister Jeeves,” he says, thinking to calm me. He fails. Those words... Mister Wooster had once said those words.... “You’ve been hallucinating since we brought you from your flat.”

I can, barely, begin to trace the move in my mind, now, from the memory of my imagined moments with Mister Wooster. The words were all fabricated; the echo of my own desires. But the feeling that he had pulled me to sit beside him in his bed was a result of being deposited here, in this strange bed; what my mind had morphed wickedly into an embrace was the set of leather straps being drawn taut over my chest....

I want to weep. I can’t. The doctor hasn’t spoken as I have been thinking everything over; when I look at him again, he nearly manages a word before I cut across him.

“Why have you _done_ this to me?!” I am insistent, I am demanding; my words tear from me, cutting through the low buzz of electricity in the air. I am unable to regain control after losing much, _so_ much from the confines of my mind. “Why have you taken me away from our flat? Mister Wooster shall be waking soon, and I must attend to him... you cannot have me here for long. He shall need things that he hasn’t the faculties to provide for himself—”

“Mister Jeeves... I cannot respond to you if you refuse to listen to reason,” he says in a long-suffering tone, and rubs a finger against his temple. I hate him. I hate everything he says, I hate everything he has _done—!_ “Mister Wooster died approximately one week ago, after a large dose of mercury. Neurological complications—which may not in themselves have caused any long-term damage— followed by swelling and hemorrhaging of the brain after being repeatedly knocked against a solid surface.”

“Restore him to me _at once!_ ” I scream at him, tearing at my throat and pulling furiously at my restraints in an attempt to sit up and address the man properly. His stare continues. That clinical, pitying gaze he meets me with each time I make a motion to speak. It is maddening _._ I _hate_ him. “Mister Wooster is perfectly safe... I need to take care of him again!”

“Yes, yes... of course, Mister Jeeves.” His tone has become a sigh as he turns around and walks a few steps and I am left alone in the little room. I can see now that it is an office that I’ve been taken to, likely for examination by a nerve specialist or another man of the mental sciences. They think there is so much wrong with me... the fault is in _hubris_ , the folly of man such that none can identify _himself_ as the root of the problem. He can only question _my_ knowledge of _my_ master before making far-off diagnoses of his own, and never even attempts to question himself.

I am reasonably surprised when he is brought into me, but he _is_ : my Mister Wooster, dressed in a nondescript brown suit that hardly becomes him, golden hair falling in some disarray over his head... but, at least, it has grown back after the incident of days before, when he was so badly ailing and off his food.

“I want to move, Jeeves,” he announces to me gladly, in a queer voice, but his own. It warms me, even though I can barely lift my head to see him. They can see, now, that he is alive, and a smile creeps over my face with great effort. I smile purposefully towards Carlyle, who is obscured as he stands directly behind my master,

“You see... you _see_ that he is alive.” A triumphant note of laughter floats through my chest, and I turn look at Mister Wooster again. I can barely lift my head to him; I can barely smile, even, so drained yet so glad am I. “Mister Wooster... sir... I would be happy to follow you to the end of the earth, after this terrible business... people saying that you’ve died.... They know _nothing_. I hardly see how I can have been brought to this place, knowing how very badly the doctor with you has spoken; how he and others have insisted to me that you were gone, from some... dose of mercury, or some sort of... organic metal such as that....”

“Utter rot, certainly, Jeeves,” he agrees with me lightly, tipping his head slightly forward in a gesture I have to guess is out of respect for my opinion, although I find the movement a little strange. He turns to Carlyle and speaks to him firmly, “Go on, ‘doctor!’ You were clearly in the wrong, and no doubt a little touched in the head yourself. Jeeves is right. It would much oblige us if you would take your leave now.” The man’s reply is so quiet that I cannot hear it, but Mister Wooster has turned back to me once his piece is finished. “He wants to stay with us while we discuss the living arrangements. Is that all right with you, Jeeves?”

I nod as much as I can. Bliss washes over me, and I feel no desire to struggle anymore. Mister Wooster is alive. He talks. He says strange things, but nothing is too strange for me anymore. He wants to be away from the bother of his relatives and his friends forever, he says. I smile, and I agree, and I love him so well, and I love him all the more knowing that, for perhaps a moment, I had begun to believe in the words of that repugnant, disreputable Carlyle.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our life is fairly solitary in terms of close company, now, but very pleasant, as I and my master share nearly every moment. I do not cook regularly anymore, as the accommodations Mister Wooster chose provides for us. Only for myself, in fact. I wish that he would eat, but he always refuses. I tell him that I worry, that I do not want us to be parted again, but he always allays my fears.

 _When_ he speaks to me, that is to say. Mister Wooster often refuses to speak, much the same as that day when the doctor, the officer and Mister Little came to the London flat demanding to see him. He will only talk to me at certain moments, and only when another is present— which, frankly, bothers me, as there is so much that I wish to discuss with him that cannot be said publicly. I am pleased to say that Mister Wooster and I have a bed together, however, which brings me some comfort through all the change. The people attending to us insist that I must sleep restrained, as they believe I have been sleepwalking, but, besides that fact, all is well.

Mister Wooster and I are brought often to speak to other people who live in our facility. Many of them are laden with difficulty; I find that I worry for some of them. There is a man who can hardly articulate words, and, when he does, they are not easily comprehended. I believe it is something to do with the speech impediment impacting the confidence of a person, something of which I’ve read in my several books on psychology. There are others, as well, but I do not wish to speak at length about these people. I am loath to speak ill of those with whom I am barely acquainted.

Even though this complex Mister Wooster desired to move to is run by others, I am allowed the same chores that comprised my life in Berkeley Mansions: cleaning and polishing silver and laying places for meals. I speak easily to the staff there, and they appreciate my knowledge of poets and philosophers and psychology and so forth. Although not an intellectual community, I suppose that I can understand Mister Wooster’s choice in coming here after all of the trouble we were given when he was ailing and unable to move from bed by himself. It is a matter of relaxation after a nearly impassable upheaval.

I’m certain that we will move again at some point—back to London, no doubt—and return to comfortable association with Mister Wooster’s relatives and friends. At the moment, we simply need to have a rest, and learn more of each other in a way we could not have before. My master was right to suggest that we come here, and I love the man for it. I love him for everything.


End file.
